Commitment Hasan

The main character Hasan, played by Umut Karadag, is a well-known face in Turkey. A kind of George Clooney, only with less hair and stern, sad eyes. He inherited the land he tills in the Ankara province from his father, where he cultivates apples and tomatoes. But an enormous electricity pylon might be built on his land. To prevent this from happening, he turns to the same corrupt judge who assigned Hasan’s house and land to him instead of to his older brother. Since then, some twenty years ago,he and his brother have not spoken. The judge and Hasantry to have the electricity pylon built on the neighbour’sdomain. When a farmer goes bankrupt, Hasan seizes this opportunity and buys the land at floor price to achieve his goal.

All this does not distract him from an important endeavour he is about to make: after a three years wait, he and his wife Emin have finally been chosen to go onthe pilgrimage to Mecca. But as all fellow believers know, pilgrims can only go to this sacred place if they have been blessed by all those they have wronged in the past. For Hassan, this will turn out to be a difficult task. Throughout the film it becomes clear that our main character is not quite the honourable, virtuous man he seemed at first and who he thinks he is. His wife Enim is not much better: hidden under a layer of good manners, she is mean and petty. The two are accomplices, but between them lies a big void – the result of a mutual feeling of guilt. Hasan is the product of ourtime, torn between his love for nature and his own interests. He is desperate to protect the wellbeing he has acquired for himself through means of favours within a corrupt system. The beautiful shots of open fields or fields with apple and peach trees are dazzling. In this film, nature does not only serve its purpose as a beautiful background or as a location for pretty pictures, but explicitly plays its own part.